When we add to this, the vast
and increasing product of our quicksilver mines of California, so
indispensable as an amalgam in producing gold and silver, as also the
great and progressive improvement in processes and machinery for working
the quartz veins, it is now believed that the estimates of our Secretary
of the Interior, and Commissioner of the General Land Office, will be
exceeded by the result. These mines of the precious metals are nearly
all on the public lands of the United States; they are the _property of
the Federal Government_, and their intrinsic value _exceeds our public
debt_.
PUBLIC LANDS.--The United States own an immense public domain,
acquired by treaties with France, Spain, and Mexico, and by compacts
with States and Indian tribes. This domain is thus described in the
Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, of November 29th,
1860:
'Of the 3,250,000 of square miles which constitute the territorial
extent of the Union, the public lands embrace an area of 2,265,625
square miles, or 1,450,000,000 of acres, being more than two thirds
of our geographical extent, and nearly three times as large as the
United States at the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace
in 1783 with Great Britain. This empire domain extends from the
northern line of Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, reaching to the
Atlantic Ocean, northwesterly to the Canada line bordering upon the
great Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, extending westward
to the Pacific Ocean, with Puget's Sound on the north, the
Mediterranean Sea of our extreme northwestern possessions.
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